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Controversial Obama Posters Prompt Investigation

Controversial images of President Barack Obama have local civil rights leaders looking for answers from St. Tammany Parish Public Schools.

A national organization said school officials have had more than enough time to figure out what led to the disturbing drawings displayed at Boyet Junior High School.

"Now is the time. We need to see due process happen, and we need to see the results of it," said Kathleen Javery-Bacon of the National Action Network.

It's been a couple of months since caricatures of Obama were displayed in a hallway at the school were brought to the attention of the school system.

The drawings, which were part of a social studies project, depicted everything from hunting season on Obama to what appeared to be a bullet hole in the president's head.

Superintendent Trey Folse opened an investigation into the matter.

Javery-Bacon heads the St. Tammany chapter of the National Action Network. She said Folse's findings were turned over to the School Board before Mardi Gras.

"He passed the information (from) the investigation onto the school board members who have had his information of the investigation since then, and we are still waiting at this particular time for the results," Javery-Bacon said.

Folse said personnel and discipline matters must follow a process governed by state law.

"These laws prevent the school system and School Board from commenting or releasing any information regarding these matters. The School Board must, is and will continue to process this matter according to the law," Folse said.

"The longer the School Board waits to take any action on it, or at least to tell anybody they've taken any action on it, again I feel might be condoning, at least tacitly, what's happened here," attorney Greg Thompson said.

In the meantime, it's school as usual at Boyet. Whatever decision is reached by St. Tammany school authorities, the issue may not be finally resolved until after school is out.

The National Action Network was founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton in New York in 1991. The civil rights organization has more than 40 chapters across the United States.

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